Baseball Headline

Junior
Preston Tucker (Tampa, Fla.) drove in two runs and sophomore Austin
Maddox (Jacksonville, Fla.) 2-for-4) belted a two-run homer to lead No. 5
Florida (37-12) to a 4-1 victory over North Florida (25-22) on Wednesday night
at McKethan Stadium. Working on a pitch count, junior left-hander Alex
Panteliodis (Tampa, Fla.) (4-1) gave up one hit over three scoreless
innings to earn the win.

“It
was good to come back home and any time you win you have to feel good about
it,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “We are obviously going to have
to play better this weekend, but it was good to see Austin (Maddox) hit his
home run and separate it a little bit. I thought our pitchers did a really good
job. It was our plan to come into the night and use a lot of our pitchers and
get them some short work to get them ready for this weekend and I thought they
all did a nice job.”

The
Gators took a 1-0 lead in the first inning against sophomore Tommy Organ (4-1)
on a sacrifice fly by Tucker. Senior Bryson Smith (Watkinsville, Ga.)
was hit by a pitch for the team-leading ninth time this season to lead off and
sophomore Nolan Fontana (Winter Garden, Fla.) (2-for-4) followed with a
single up the middle. Sophomore Mike Zunino (Cape Coral, Fla.) flew out
to center field, moving Smith to third, and an errant relay throw by freshman outfielder
Shane Kennedy allowed Fontana to take second base. After Tucker brought Smith
home with his first sacrifice fly of the season, Organ had senior Josh Adams
(Jacksonville, Fla.) fly out to end the frame.

The
Ospreys put a pair of runners aboard in the third but came away empty-handed.
Panteliodis retired the first six hitters of the game before junior T.J. Gavlik
reached on a one-out error. After freshman Alex Hernandez had an infield single,
sophomore Corey Bass grounded out.

Freshman
Brandan Keen replaced Organ (2.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R) prior to UF’s third at bat and
Zunino raised his hitting streak to 13 games with a one-out single into center
field. Zunino swiped his seventh stolen base, took third on the play courtesy
of a wild pitch and scored on an RBI grounder by Tucker for a 2-0 lead.

Junior
Anthony DeSclafani (Freehold, N.J.) took over for Panteliodis (3.0 IP, 1
H) at the outset of the fourth and yielded back-to-back singles by junior
Andrew Karmeris (2-for-4) and Bacon. DeSclafani induced a grounder by Kennedy
that erased Karmeris at third base and then had senior Kyle Dahl hit into an
inning-ending 1-4-3 double play.

Dahl
came through with a two-out RBI single down the left-field line in the sixth to
narrow the gap to 2-1. Karmeris had opened the stanza with a double off junior Tommy
Toledo (Tampa, Fla.) after DeSclafani permitted three hits in two scoreless
innings. Toledo had Bacon pop up and then struck out Kennedy before Dahl sliced
a 0-1 offering into left field for a base-hit.

Florida
answered in the home part of the inning on a towering two-run blast by Maddox
off freshman Joe Iorio for a 4-1 advantage. After Tucker reached on a two-base
error and was sacrificed to third on a bunt by Adams, Maddox launched his third
round-tripper of the season deep to left field and into the parking lot in
between McKethan Stadium and the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.

“I’ve been scuffling a little bit but I just
try to take every at bat, one at bat at a time,” Maddox said. “He threw me a
curve ball and left it up; I just didn’t try to do too much with it and put a
good swing on it.”

Junior
Nick Maronde (Lexington, Ky.) struck out the side in the seventh, junior
Greg Larson (Longwood, Fla.) pitched a scoreless eighth and sophomore Steven
Rodriguez (Miami, Fla.) recorded the first two outs in the ninth before
senior Matt Campbell (Tampa, Fla.) notched the final out to complete the
three-run triumph with his first save.

The
Gators are back in action on Friday in the opener of a pivotal weekend series
at No. 2 Vanderbilt (41-6/19-5 SEC). The Commodores hold a one-game lead in the
overall and Eastern Division standings over Florida and No. 3 South Carolina
(38-10/18-6 SEC). The series opener will be televised on CSS at 7 p.m. ET and
air in Gainesville and Ocala on Channel 199 on the Cox Communications cable
system.